welcome to our program. tonight we talk to six mayors about the challenges they face in governing their cities today. michael bloomberg 89 mayor of new york city, the michael nutter the mayor of philadelphia, jerry sanders the mayor of sand aye oh, kasim reed the mayor of atlanta, bill white the mayor of houston and rmplets t. rybak the mayor of minneapolis. >> if they pass laws, they will have to do it but fundamentally they can be some really serious cutbacks throughout this country which will damage our future because the federal government and the state governments are not doing what they should do and that is investing in the things that really matter rather than wasting money and spending money where it is popular.

and the greatest example -- tom friedman, one of them, we spend 40% of our money on seniors and 10% on our youth. if you think bit for the future, it should be much more balanced. >> we see in our various state governments and we looked at what goes on in washington. we could never get away with some of the stuff that goes on in those other places. you either filled the pothole or you didn't. you either had hat swimming pool open or you didn't. someone responded to 9/11 or you did not. i never have to wonder what's on philadelphia's mind. >> we're dealing with a system that was set up 50 or 60 years ago when life expectancy was probably about 65 years. people worked until they were 62. there was a very short time in between when you were retired. now, we have employees retire at age 55 or age 60 at the highest and they're living to 85 or 90

and they're making less of a contribution now than they were thin. and that's simply not sustainable as bill said. you just can't get there from here. so we're starting to see municipal services cut fairly dramatically in order to make the pension payments. and the citizens at least of san diego say we want those services open but we don't want to pay more. >> the pension challenges, we actually know the answers to. what you really have is a will problem. resolving these deficits we're facing are very hard and require a lot of negotiation. but the data really is undeniable. if we don't deal with it we'll have governments that are insolvent. i think what the people around this table want to do is to be thoughtful and not to it in way that is harsh but to do it in a way that meets the objective

with honoring our commitment, meeting our pension obligations but having a city that's fiscally sustainable. >> we have to have plans sustainable over the long rung and affordable as well. i think people around this table are aware of where the rubber meets the road. in my states as in most states, the hands of mayors are largely tied. i think if every mayor around this table knows that they will be held accountable for their own job performance and ought to be given the mowers and the tools to per-- powers and fools to perform those jobs. >> our kids speak a hundred lungs of languages and come from all over the globe. in america we don't do language very well or culture very well. the largest somali population is in minute -- minneapolis. we've got kids speaking multiple

languages so these businesses have begun to say i get it and they'll hire a few for the summer and help get through college. i think we've got to talk about an asset-based way of having a diverse community. >> charlie: mayors and their cities when we continue. but this isn't just a hollywood storyline. it's happening every day, all across america. every time a storefront opens. or the midnight oil is burned. or when someone chases a dream, not just a dollar. they are small business owners. so if you wanna root for a real hero, support small business. shop small. additional funding provided by these funders:

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> tonight a distinguished group of mayors look at cities, the urban experience with all of its possibilities and challenges. they face tough decisions, how to meet overwhelming financial commitments with limited resources. as we have seen in wisconsin and other states, these issues have sparked a national debate about the role of government and the cost of government. michael nutter is mayor of philadelphia. kasim reed is mayor of atlanta, jerry sanders is mayor of san diego, r.t. rybak is mayor of minneapolis. bill white is the former mayor of houston and michael bloomberg is now serving his third term as mayor of new york estimate i'm please to do have all of them here at this im -table to talk

about cities and the challenges they face. talk to me about how you see the challenge of being mayor, especially the budgetary decisions and pension reform. >> today cities face the same thing. revenues are down, pensions are up, particularly pension costs. federal government used to give you stimulus money. no longer and no prospect in the future. states have their own economic problem to the extent they're funding cities they've cut back as well. when you look at the biggest thing that most cities have to deal with, it is the pension costs. in new york city our pension costs used to be one and-a-half billion dollar. the reason pensions go up so much is in the public sector, you have defined benefit plans, and the private sector you have defined contribution plans. the difference is in the private sector, the employer gives x amount of money and the

recipient gets it and they boy whatever they can with it. in defined benefit plans, the benefits go to the employee and whatever it costs the employer, it has to, they have to pay. and these costs are something that was given in good faith that the employees got but today cities cannot afford them. how you adjust, whether you have fewer employees, whether you get the unions agree to change or whether you down the road change the benefits for future employees, those are the different kinds of possibilities, and every mayor has to focus on the loss in their states. the politics in their states, the contracts that they have on the books with their employees and the public's willingness to pay. most people believe that municipal workers should not be laid off and yet that's the one thing that the mayors can really control. if you want more services and

you want to pay less, those are mutually inconsistent and they say well you wanted the job you do it. >> charlie: in some cases states play the role and you can't for example as mayor of new york negotiate pension benefits. >> new york is different than most other places. once a pension benefit is given by the state to city employees where the city has to pay, even the state can't take away. there's very little you can do for existing employees other than lay them off. the trouble is if you want to provide services, those are the people that provide the services and i have argued that the problem isn't so much the unions whose job it is to ask for as much as they can for their employees, that's why union leaders are hired. it is government and the public that has given them things that we cannot afford in down times and that they were given in good times and nobody thought about the down times. >> charlie: so how do you deal with this problem, mayor reed. >> i say we have to deal witness head on. the pension challenges, we actually know the answers to.

what you really have is a will problem. resolving these deficits we're facing are very hard and require a lot of negotiation. but the data really is undeniable and if we don't deal with it, you're going to have a simple government that becomes insolvent. what i think the people who around this table want to do is to be thoughtful and to not do it in a way that is harsh, but to do it in a way that meets the objective as honoring our commitments but having a city that's if i wasally sustainable. this has to be dealt with and i think mayors, as we do on so many fronts are going to be the ones who lead the way and show the nation we need to deal with these liabilities $200 billion at the municipal level, one trillion at the state level. >> charlie: you especially feel that it's true for this year, for this generation of mayors? >> no question about it. i mean i say all the time, i

mean my generation, i'm 41 years old, certainly hadn't made any major sacrifices that i'm aware, certainly no world war i, no world war ii, no civil rights movement, no great depression. i believe we need to take it on. i think there are going to be some sacrifices, the younger folks are going to have to make around a social security and other things. but dealing with this fiscal challenge i think is something that we ought to view in that fashion and we need to challenge people that these problems need to be met. >> charlie: mayor white, when you were mayor of houston, how did you make the communication to your citizens in houston that these were tough times and it required hard decisions that they may not like? >> well, i told the public in referendum on our pension reforms that we wanted to give people due credit for the time they had put in under the old system. but we needed a new system and we needed to pay people more to perform and work.

and less not to work. the fact is that people are living longer, that's a good thing, but the stock market hadn't done that great over the last decade, that's really out of the pension, money was invested, and we have to have plans that are sustainable over the long run, and to do that, they have to be affordable as well. i think the people around this table are where the rubber meets the road, in my state as in most states, the hands of mayors are largely tied. i think if every mayor around this table knows that they will be held accountable for their own job performance, and ought to be given the powers and the tools to perform their job. >> we're dealing with a system that was set up 50 or 60 years ago when life expectancy was probably about 65 years. people worked until they were 62. there was a very short time in between when you were retired.

now we have employees to retired at age 55 or 65 at the highest and living to 85 or 90 and making less of a contribution now than they were then and that's simply not sustainable, as bill said. you just cannot get there frommer ha. so we're starting to see municipal services cut fairly dramatically in order to make the pension payments, and the citizens at least of san diego are saying that's not what we're after. we want our parks and rec hope, we want our libraries open and fire and police service and we don't want to pay more. >> charlie: what are they prepared to accept. >> what they're not prepared to accept are large public employee retirement benefits that they don't get. and that's the reason we'll be going out with an initiative or i will be with one of the counsel members to be to a 401k-style plan just like the private sectors gets now. when you think about it, the private sector shouldn't have to pay tax dollars to get a much better system to public employees than they get themselves in the private

sector. >> charlie, i mean this great recession has kasim talked about, this is the time that all of us have to take action and we have to get things done. that's what we do for a living. so we talk about the pension problem in philadelphia in 2000 we had about $200 million of general fund money into our pension system. a year from now that number will be nearly $600 million. that's money that is not going to police, not going to fire, not going to a rec center, just a pension payment. so the public really has to understand why it's immayorive to have these kinds of changes. and the recession, quite frankly, with fewer tax dollars, revenues are coming in, forces all of us to innovate, come up with new ideas. the public wants the service, no they don't want to pay any more for it and they're starting to question what's the from value of their tax dollar and where is it going. >> charlie: what distinction

do you make between new employees and existing employees and those that have retired? . >> i'd like to not make a distinction. i'd like to think somebody could have a great career but sadly the benefits we pay are significant different. these are not ratios, you need to step back and recognize the reason we're all in this swairks is because the economy is slow so we're all working on that to a degree you can move that to a city. but the short term issue is you really have to look out for that employee that you want to be there for a long time to get objection pertise and deliver services, you have to have control over the long term benefits. as a mayor right now you have to walk and chew gum at the same time. you have long term and short term. in our case, we had to look at the place the pensions come in with us is we had one fund that hasn't accepted a new member since 1979 and yet the

calculations we're getting more than than they should havement so we had to get another court case with them and we'll battle that out but we're not doing it to be jerks or to be tough on those who put good work to the city, we're doing it to look out for the long term impact of our community. >> charlie: do you think this can be solved in 30 years of the life of the cities. >> it has to be or the cities will run out of money. these costs keep growing, like healthcare costs. we're just talking about pensions here but the health care benefits are exactly the same problem and arguably even worse, most of us have funded at least part of our pension liabilities almost. no city has funded parts of their healthcare benefits which they may have to provide to retirees going forward. there's a time bomb and the problem is there's no easy ways to address the issues without standing up to very powerful political groups, which influence elections and most elected officials want to get

re-elected. it's difficult to look people in the eye and say i'm sorry, we're going to take away something you counted on or we're not going to give it to your successor and just nothing we can do about it. in the end, those receiving the benefits say i'll raise taxes and those paying say cut the number of employees but everybody wants to keep the same benefits. >> it will change as long as things can stay the same for them. until it affects them. thin it's a different story. >> i've heard a lot of people criticize local government on this issue and i just want to remind everybody that the largest unfunded like they defined benefit plan in the country is called the social security system. the military pension system is 100% unfunded by dedicated fund which these cities and other cities have put aside. the police officers and firefighters don't get the

benefit of the social security system so they're entitled to a secure retirement. and there are municipal workers out there picking up people's garbage, in our city we lowered benefits, changed benefits. we took on people. but people ought to speak up al so. i had a solid waist worker, somebody collect garbage, $28,000 salary, he could barely raise his arms to about this level right here because of the bursitis. he was going to retire. we ought to make those pensions secure. >> i think part of this is the broad brush people are paying with pensions. it's not fair that people are getting very very legitimate pensions and you need to recognize that there are different situations in each of our cities as we talked about that. people have a right to have a

transparent look at how their dollars are spent, and i think what's been good about this downturn is cities have invented the way they've done result management. we've asked people to do more. we've talk board of director a two-way government. we had a 311 system. we want you to complain about the pot hall and put it on our gis map. it's not just about having the government over here and the people over here but partners in delivering services together for a lot less. >> one of the reasons we're in this situation is government typically does its budgets from the bottom up. they have this amount of money, let's go spend it. in fact i've always argued what you should do is sit down and say what services do we have to provide that are appropriate for government to do and at what level. then let's try to find ways to do it as economically as we can and then you get to the bottom and say okay, how much money do we need to do this and then you go out and look for taxes or fees or something like that. instead, we tend to cut and say

oh the heck with that, we'll figure it out or we'll kick the can down the road. if you watch in this country, the federal government is walking away from obligations to do things which they not only agree should be done but they man date it has to be done. thin the state level, the next one down is walking away from obligations to fund the very things they by law mandate what we do. it is the cities around this table and around this country that have to figure out a ways to pay for it. but a lot of these things we can't cut back because federal laws and state laws require us to provide the service and the president and governors say i've got to balance my budget so sorry we just cannot send you back your money. we have to remember are, this is our money. we send it to washington or we send it to the state. they give us a little bit back and we're supposed to say thank you. >> it's a bizarre system and i think each state right now, the

state of california, 140,000 taxpayers support 50% of the income tax in the state of california. every time we lose one of those taxpayers, we should be going out and giving them a brand new car and say state in the state of california. and yet the state legislature will not -- when times are bad like right now you sum me can't make it up and we're always in emergency mode and that's when the states look to the cities and the counties and take the money a away from us. >> here's a city with 8.4 million people, 5,000 people pay 50% of the city tax. if any of these people leave, we are in trouble and thin everybody says let's have a million in tax they're not paying their share. i don't know whether it's, share is a definitional thing but i do know if you drive them out your tax revenues are going to go down and then businesses and the drugs that they created. >> charlie: when you look at the question of revenue, can you afford to raise property taxes,

can you afford to call for sales tax? are those tools that are in your basket? >> i don't really think property taxes are right now. i don't think there is a will around property tax, certainly not in atlanta where prior to my coming into office we had a tax increase. i think that you can have sales taxes that are appropriate when you get out and make the case for it. we had to pay for $4 million in water and sewer repair. everyone got it. there was a kp and g study that said that would gyp rate $19 billion in economic development. but i believe all of us have to do a much better job of articulating why we need resources to explain to people what you will lose if you don't. the other change that i see us making is the part of government that interacts with people's lives, that people see, feel and touch, it has to get done right now. so that the other parts are okay. but when folks making 9/11 phone

call trash service, that actually has to function better in these tough times or really null apart because there's so much price in substituted. >> charlie: where are you cutting spending in atlanta? >> well, we did a number of things. well police and fire are off limits. but first of all, the pension reform is actually going to have a positive cash yield. so my first six months in office, the reforms we made allowed me to hire another hundred police officers. it allowed me to give police and fire step increases. so we're cutting in certain areas, reforming in other areas and putting them into the part that government's need is greatest. at the end of the day the city of atlanta has 7,500 employees. we're now in a place that you have to go employee by employee, find out what that employee does

and if they aren't essential to the part of government that touches people's lives, you have to make a decision about making government smaller. we did that as well. so we had a series of cuts, we had a series of fee increases where we wanted the service we were providing fully paid for and compensated, and then we implemented a number of reforms and we have much better managers running the government. so my coo is a 20 year partner in bain and company. he's instituted a number of reforms that would have been rehard to implement in the public sector, just 36 months ago. >> we did just about everything you talked about. temporary increase in sales tax, temporary increase in property tax, raise a bunch of fees and fines. did lay some people off but most on our reduction in force, 1600 fewer employees with us today than two years ago mostly by attrition. did make cuts in police, did

make cuts in fire. it was a shared sacrifice. everyone had to be in the game. everything was on the table. we didn't do across the board because that affects some departments much worse than some others so we were targeted cuts and targeting investments. we raise about half of the money that fill our budget deficit and we make cuts for the other half. and what the end result is, tax revenues have stabilized. we're not back at 0 8 levels, we're just not losing as much money as we were but reaching a stability where we can now grow in recovery. >> we in san diego have some sales tax increase and you have to go out in california and be voted by the people. we got killed and that's even after we had laid off 17% of the work force in san diego. i'm a republican mayor, went out and said, you know, this is

essential if we want to keep fire employee service. we cut police officers, cut firefighters. what the public said, and i got the message loud and clear and you need to rein in pension costs. the public's simply saying you can't keep cutting services when you got these other issues that you need to take care of. >> people understand the national budget and the federal budget that it's the big part of it is defense. medicare. do most of the people in city understand that pension commitments are a large part of what they're paying tax for. >> they do in san diego because we've been intestigated by everybody in the world starting back in the early part of this decade and it's been in the newspapers in san diego every day since then. while others are in much worse shape because we started cutting back, we put in a new pension system for employees once already. we're envisioning the next one

for new employees and we can't take that from existing employees. >> charlie: let me raise a question about unions and unions who represent public employees. has the attitudes either in terms of municipal officials or in terms of the public changed, i'm thinking in part of wisconsin. >> wisconsin's next door to me and the debacle has been the worse of all scenarios because everybody goes to their side of the ring and come out fighting. that's not helping anybody. we've had to be in tough issues with unions on pensions and reformed healthcare witness. so you can move it either way. i think, you know, the issue isn't really the unions as much as -- and i think you had said earlier it's what we do at the table. your job is to represent the employees and our job is to represent the public and to do that well. but i think there are other issues that we need to put on the table. one as you mentioned defense. i believe we need to be put under a microscope and are we doing our job of limiting spending at a local level. we need to put the same scrutiny

to the national economy. we have a war time economy that's trying to build a peace time country and you can't do both. and i think there are a few examples in our history that are shown you can't do that, we've got to have that honest discussion. the second thing we have to do is look at the fact while we're doing this tough work now, we also could grow our cities. the talk base growth has countered the whole popular culture for generation. it's different now. people are moving back into cities as we reinvest in transit and put more density along transit quarters. that allows us to grow a tax base. it's a period of time where you have to really really put tough scrutiny but you have the opportunity to lay ground work for bigger cities. the street car cities of america had huge thoracic bases. the no street car cities whatever kind of transit you put that around create the more dense neighbors and create more income that helped us get out of this mess. >> charlie: what was your biggest job as mayor other than

the budget process and looking at pension? >> well we have to make sure that we grow jobs in the city and we have two kinds of job levels if you quifl that we have to focus on. one is making sure that the high particular, high fashion, high intellectual content job that pays us well that gives us a thank you base comes here and stays here. we are in competition with all the other cities in the world. on the other end we have unemployment like other. not all but a large number of those unemployed need a different level of job. they don't have great formal education. some don't have great command of the english language, so we have to be creating those jobs. they tend to be a lot lower pay. they tend to have less benefits. but nevertheless a job is better than no job and those job are very price sensitive. interestingly enough, long term for the country, i think the

problem is really in the middle. today the challenge for our cities is to get people who will create jobs, people who will pay taxes to come voluntarily and live in our cities and at the same time understand that the unemployed aren't going to get green jobs, whatever that means. they're not going to get high tech jobs. they don't have the skill sets, either they never had the education, it would be virtually impossible to get them back into the, into an education system. so they have to be able to learn on the job and only some kinds of jobs that will do that. >> charlie: in your city have instituted a problem to what do you call it, one job -- >> power one initiative. >> charlie: power one initiative. >> yes. i sat down with a gentleman named ed baker who runs our business paper and we were just having a conversation and said we retired people were complaining about unemployment and we really wanted to change the level of morale. what we did is during the state of my city, i challenged every

business who hired a full time employee, verified by a third party to one, make that known, and then we advertise it in our business paper. i'm pleased to say in about six weeks, we've hired 4,500 individuals. actually more than that number, and we've been publicizing it and creating a narrative of employment. at the end of the day small businesses drive employment and increase opportunities. so we've done a number of things. we advertise in our business publication, we're reaching out to our business leaders. we're challenge businesses on billboards, and it is creating a competitive spirit around this, if you are will, where companies are calling and telling us they bring people full time on the payroll. >> jobs, public safety, education. >> charlie: that's what it's

like to be mayor. >> absolutely, every day. you have to performn hour varioe governments and we look at what goes on in washington. we could never get away with some of the stuff that goes on in those other places. you either filled the pothole or you didn't. someone responded to 9/11 or they didn't. you see it on the street or you hear about it. that's what this job is all about. fewer resources, fewer people and a public that is angry and scared at the same time. a pretty bad combination. >> there are no easy answers and you're not going to be popular being a mayor and having to make decisions. michael nutter is right, at the federal level and state level you get on both sides of the same issue. mayors don't get that option, that's why mayors tend not to go on to other jobs, partially because being a maricopa is --

mayor is the best job there is in government. everybody knows exactly where you are and you make decisions. every time you make decisions you lose half the people, so after five decisions it's and you your mother and i'm not sure about her.

but it is. -- i think it's probably going to be actually every single agency but it's going to include education and we need our governor to pass a law that will change the ways that we ask pick teachers. we want to pick not the old or the new but the most effective teachers to stay, and unfortunately if we have to part company with anybody, it's going to be with those teachers who are less effective. and the law does not let us do that right now. >> i'll tell you this, for all of our communities in the long run, the global competitiveness, mayor bloomberg talked about the competitiveness of new york city compared to other cities. we all compete in the large cities with cities all throughout this country and all over the world. and something is going wrong when our country is, if anything, during this next fiscal, this calendar year, you will see cuts in higher education in the states in this

country. california and texas have a quarter of the public school students, have a quarter of the young population and both states are cutting back big time in higher education. and that's a step in the wrong direction. because the mayors -- we can arrest people, we can attract businesses by trying to create a good business environment. but our nation needs to compete with other nations by cutting that dropout rate and making sure that everybody gets a chance at the american dream. >> mayors, some of us do and don't have control on our school systems. i don't. i happen to have a great partnership with the minneapolis school superintendent. but the way i see my job is hold her accountable for holding the schools and the teachers and the administrators accountable. my job is to hold the community accountable. so that's on what are we as a community doing on early childhood development, quality out of school time and especially on these issues of trying to get kids motivated. we have something called the minneapolis promise where we raise private money to put career centers in every high

school and we tie that to a summer job program called step up putting thousands of kids to work every summer. we tie that to college access. we're able to raise that money. your whole point about competitiveness, our kids speak a hundred languages and they come from all over the globe. in america we don't do language very well. we don't do culture very well. we would be better to compete in a global environment. here we've got a generation with more global confidence with any generation over ever. the largest somali population is in minneapolis. when africa becomes the next india and china, we have kids making multiple languages. so these businesses become to say i get it, they'll hire a few for the summer and help them get through college. i think we've got to talk about an asset-based way of having a diverse community. >> charlie: go ahead. >> i think that's what we're all looking at probably from our own perspectives, the assets each of our regions have. we're on the mexican border, we have the concept where we

include mexico and california, southern california, the knowledge skulls from the san diego area. the work force comes from our imperial valley and the manufacturing capacity happens in mexico with the plants. we're looking globally and people are starting to invest globally in that region because of those three assets. i think each of us look at our cities and think what with we do better with the resources we have, with the jog -- geography we have and the work force we have. >> charlie you say is there any solution international. we need immigrants. this country is committing suicide. it's the dumbest thing ever created. we say to he people we can create jobs here, invent the next thing here, add to our culture no you can't come. other countries are desperate to get them and we are turning them away. we educate them and they go elsewheres because they can't get a green card. the people who will start businesses, the people who will work in the fields because it's not just intellectual capital,

sometimes it's sweat capital. we need enormous number of people we decide who comes here, what skill sets, what languages, what cultures. what built america was the diversity of the city -- of the country and now we are walking away from other. and it is at some point here, unless both ends of pennsylvania avenue and both sides of the aisle stand up and do comprehensive immigration reform we'll get through that tipping point where you're not going to be able to come back. this country is falling in education. we used to be in the top five, now we're in the top 40. we have business creation. there are plenty of great things in america but we don't have the only hand to play. >> charlie: we're competitive today. >> as we have ever been. >> how wide is the window before we find you're says on the bad end. >> there was somebody yesterday that wanted a green card,

couldn't get it. they may be the next nobel prize winner and win their prize and work some place else in the world. the country turned anti-immigrant. we've gone through these periods before but this one is much deeper and much more pervasive and there's less courage to stand up and to face it. and i saw the other day arizona all of a sudden realize surprise surprise, people would take conventions elsewheres, taking jobs elsewheres. >> charlie: you all chair that sense. >> we're educating a huge number of foreign students in our universities. ucsd in san diego and san diego state educate an enormous number of engineers who go right back home again instead of keeping them. we have a high tech capacity. >> why do you get that and the congress doesn't get that. >> why are we giving free college to immigrants. >> lets give an example. university of minnesota has the

highest chinese enrollment. so a student goes there and graduates 20 years ago and goes to work for portson in construction. is successful in minneapolis. then he leaves china and brings back work to minneapolis. over and over you have stories like that. it's a hot button issue, why can't my kid get into college but this kid does. the fact of the matter is we have to import some of that talent or they'll eat our lunch. >> part of the difference in what we do for a living versus some of the other folks as r.t. talked about sloganeering. we educate hundreds of thousands of young people. philadelphia kind of with the census results clearly because

of immigrant population gains, solidly now in fifth place, the fifth largest city in the country, we need to hold on to these folks. congress, it's about philosophy, it's about ideology. we don't usually have time for that. we're trying to run our place. increase our tax revenues, deliver services. we could not get away with those kinds of debates. people on the ground back home in many instances don't really care about that. other parts open. is this place running around properly. are you using my tax dollars well. that's what they want to know. these wonderful lofty debates we can't do that back home. >> charlie: at the same time you've got budget emergencies, you have to see how many libraries you keep open what, your commitment is to your city because that's a magnet to bring people in not only who want to

work there but open businesses. >> it's in the tough times you have to go and make the tough, make the investments are for the future. keep in mind in the tough times, you can get a lot better value for your dollar invested, if you're going to construct a building. costs are cheaper if you want to attract people. there are fewer jobs if you got a better chance of getting them there. if you want to enhance your cultural institutions that's the time to buy better art or get better performers or whatever they happen to do. new york city walked away and it took decades to recover. how can you invest in a new bridge or water tunnel or new museum or new school when you're laying off people. it's not either/or, you have to balance the budget but at the same time you have to make those capital investments. if you go and look when the great things were done in this country, they were done when this country was at the bottom. take a look at all of the wpa buildings, all of the municipal buildings in the schools and all our cities were built then.

take a look. eisenhower, the economy wasn't very good when he got the interstate highway system which really opened this whole country up. you can go right back here. we always talk about the eerie canal which was done in tough times or the railroads which were built lincoln's time. those were the things that really changed the country and to not -- the equivalent of those thing is investing in the schools. like these guys talked about, it's in investing in getting companies, the high tech companies to come here and invent new things here. >> investing in the future or are you going to stay in the past. >> so as mayor bloomberg said, yes, you have to run the city, yes you have to balance budget. >> charlie: yes have you to make hard decisions. >> yes, every day but you always have to be looking toward the future and you cannot december mate -- dessimate the place you're taking today down the road. these tough times will not last

forever. >> charlie: you have to build a solution for the future which costs money today and you call that an investment. >> absolutely. >> partisanship can get in the way too. no mayor has ever heard of a sift sun grumbling about public employees when a 911 call is answered by an ems, okay. by the time same, every mayor, every mayor unlike the people in the federal government needs to collect the money to pay for its operating budget. we borrow money for capital expenditures but we balance budgets. we balance budgets in the cities. it's been that way for a hong time. >> charlie: what about crime in america cities today. >> crime is at an all time low today. >> there are a whole lot of factors but two things we did big. one is we really invested in a public health approach to youth violence prevery pre-- up stre.

we got rid of a small number of offenders with guns led by mayor bloomberg that's really helped all of us mayors step up. >> charlie: because he's out there. >> yes and he's creating a shield for us to stand up. >> power in numbers in this case. >> yes. and so a bunch of us got on board. so now we have dramatically lowered crime, for these two reasons, i think, are big parts of it. >> we've done the same thing. for the fourth time we've had less than a hundred murders in atlanta since lyndon johnson. we're giving our young people alternative and spending more money hiring police. this year we hired 250 police. the bottom line is it's consistent with the overall message. if you let crime get out of control during tough economic time, when things change, business won't come there because of the damage that they saw in the last one, two, three and four years.

so this notion of making critical investments so that you can have a future is consistent with the message that the mayors have shared today. >> it's not only about what the police do, of course. the flip side is people go away. if you can't do the crime you can't do the time. limited ability to read or write, limited education, limited skills, bad friends, tough housing, now with a criminal record. that person's in worse shape. so then the question is who is going to hire them. now we just passed a law, we're in the midst of lasting legislation in philadelphia that takes the question about have you ever been convicted off of the application so that that is not an immediate rejection for that person trying to turn their life around. we have numerous companies in philadelphia that work with us to hire x offenders. we give any company that hires

an x offender, we give them a tax credit for hiring that person and keep them for three years. it costs me $30,000 a year to keep someone in prison. i'm willing to spend ten to help them get a job. >> we've all seen pretty much the same results. i think in sand san diego it'sa little different story. in san diego the community took it. they direct the efforts of the police officers. we're the eighth largest city in the united states we only had 28 homicides last year. being on the border with mexico. a lot of things you hear on these talk shows is not true, we don't have violence sprouting all over. it's the community working in conjunction with the police officers, it's a huge effort. and working with the youth, getting the patience involved with the youth. curfew sweeps by parents and pastors and people who are

influential with their kids to get them off the street at night so they're not victims of crimes and they don't perpetrate the crimes. begun initiative is absolutely essential. >> new york has also been a model in many ways the, the work that mayor bloomberg did, mayor giuliani, mayor dinkins over a long period of time a tremendous drop in homicides and violent crimes sustained. we've had 22% drop in my first three years in office and have a long way to go. but with mayor bloomberg and mairtz against illegal guns is really good for us. >> charlie: public private partnerships. is there much to be gained there? >> yes. the private sector can help in demonstration projects but the magnitude that the government provides, it's only the taxpayer that has that kind of money. so we can start a project, see if it works but when you want to scale it up, then you basically have to have the government do

it. now what private partnerships can do other than demonstration projects is they could buy some of your assets. there's the theory that you should sell off your assets and then rent it back. we're actually talking about doing that with a fleet of cars. we don't have to be in the maintenance business. what i've always thought didn't make a lot of sense was to sell your assets, take the money, use it to balance your budget because ben at -- then at the d of the year you have the same budget problem next year and you don't have the asset anymore. if you reinvest it perhaps that would make some sense. but in the end, it is, we use public private partnerships for a lot of things to get advice and to get some funding for small things. in the end, it is good government. the public has to demand from their elected officials services, and the public has to be mature enough to understand that those services don't con without costs, and in the end, the costs are going to pay it.

>> charlie: anybody on private public. >> we've got a couple private public partnerships i think are pretty exciting. they both involve the border with mex development one is an air port crossing. 100 yards south of the united states. they're talking about a private company coming in building a gate on the u.s. side, check their luggage on the u.s. side, pay a toll to walk across. we're doing the same thing with the truck entry. truck weight right now is six to eight hours to cross the border coming north. toll crossing that would be built privately and would collect a toll would ease that traffic to probably 20 minutes and save a lot of work in terms of the environment and a lot of other things that will ease congestion. >> small one. we had, in 2008 when the crises hit us, we have ice rinks and we

had to close some of them. now in a partnership we will run all five. more hours, more equipment, more programming and more young people being served. we don't have to run those ourselves. >> the city of houston, we so envy central park here and millennium park. we built that downtown so people say we missed our shot. 14 acres right in the middle of downtown built a park when i was mayor. about 60% done with private funds. and maintained with a conservancy that is two thirds private funds. if you challenge citizens they'll come forward. but i tell you what, don't tell me we ought to be using a lot of tax dollars to subsidize one person's business versus another business. that's another topic. and too many cities and states are disarming in public education and public safety because they're continuing with each other for subsidies. >> we are partners with the

ceo's in minneapolis st. paul to use our supply chain for entrepreneurs. >> charlie: what i hear here is all the tools and all the ideas you need are this. you've got restraints that are from relationship with state legislature, you've got restraints because of pension commitments but the ideas, the capacity to attract the best people to come work in city government is there. >> yes. and you can get people to work in city government than in the state government or federal government. [laughter] the reason is people have a chance to go along with spobility. the problem we have is the

federal government thinks if they don't pay for it it will still get done or the state pays for it. if they pass laws creatures of the state have to do it. but fundamentally this is serious cutbacks throughout this country which will damage our future because the federal government and the state governments are not doing what they should do and that is investing in the things that really matter rather than wasting money and spending money where it is popular. and the greatest exam -- tom friedman or someone with of them we spent 90% on our adults and 10% on our youth and it should be more balanced. >> people really loved being in city and working for city government, you can actually get things done at this level. >> charlie: thank you all. it's a pleasure. cities have been a place that has reflected the best in our

civilization in many ways. it's where the best of culture comes and where talented people come and it offers a chance for all of us to build special places and to be leaders in that effort. so thank you for coming to this table. pleasure to have you here. thank you for joining us for this hour. looking at cities in america and the challenges and the opportunities. see you next time.

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